Author: Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

Jigging, plating and sanding

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

So despite my lack of motivation, I did make some progress this week.

I thought I had finished making jigs, having completed acoustic number 4 entirely in my home workshop…apparently not.

Number 4 had a dovetail joint for the neck, for which I bought a template from Stew Mac and build my own device for using it. Nothing wrong with the jig or template, but I swear I’m not doing another dovetail joint, they are just too difficult!

So for this build, I’m doing straight mortise and tenon joint with bolt on neck.

But, I needed the template to cut the mortise and tenon.…

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Fridays are lutherie days!

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

Earlier this year I negotiated with my employer to work 4 days a week, allowing me one day, Fridays, to spend in the workshop making guitars. So far it’s working out OK. A lot of those Fridays haven’t fully been spent on lutherie, or I’ve had medical appointments or lunch catch-ups with friends. I could probably have been more diligent about reserving Fridays just for lutherie.

Never the less, I have managed to punch out two bodies and start on two necks in that time, acoustic dreadnoughts number 5 and 6. I’m using timber I picked up from David Linton of Australian Guitar Timbers back in September 2019 when I was on holidays on the Sunshine Coast.…

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The difference between lies and bullshit.

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

Philosopher Harry Frankfurt famously drew a distinction between lies and what he termed “bullshit”.

A lie is an untruth, but it is still tied to a fact. It is the corruption of the fact. Bullshit is speech with no basis in fact, in truth. Many of us think we live in an age of lies, when in fact we live in an age of bullshit.

Bullshit is like belief, its embrace affords no room for questioning.

Frankfurt’s notion of bullshit can help us better understand the nature of modern politics, advertising, news and even science (think climate change denial or anti-vaxxers).…

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SqLite Auto-increment fields in Entity Framework

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

By default, Scaffolding a table with an auto-increment field adds:

.ValueGeneratedNever();

To the field in the Model Builder. This will cause an automatic value NOT to be generated. This needs to be removed.

Also, we need to add:

        [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
        public int? TemplateId { get; set; }

To the item – and ensure it is a nullable int. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/core/modeling/generated-properties …

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Interface the virtual abstract

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

I’ve researched this several times now and keep forgetting the results. So, putting it here to record it for next time. What is the difference and usage for c# interfaces, virtual and abstract classes and methods? And where do you use them?

Interface

An interface specifies a contract.

  • Interfaces contain only declarations of the members in the class but cannot contain implementation details.
  • Interfaces do not have constructors
  • All methods in an interface MUST be implemented by the class
  • It only contains public access modifier because everything in the interface is public.
  • A child class can inherit from multiple interfaces (multiple inheritance)
  • [Note that properties in C# are in effect a method, so you can specify a property in an interface, but the property needs to be implemented by the derived class].
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If you’re going to be a dick, expect to be treated like one!

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m a grumpy old bastard sometimes, and one of my character flaws is not admitting I’m wrong. But in the face of irrefutable proof that I’m wrong, I’ll most often accede the point.

However, one thing that gets my goat is when someone says something that is clearly wrong, is then proven wrong by stating the facts, then goes on to continue to rant about being treated disrespectfully rather than admit they were wrong in the first place!

If you’re going to act like a dick, expect to be treated with the same amount of respect as you gave!…

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The next project

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

This next build is taking me a long time to do. Started it in February 2018 while I was still doing the instrument making course at TAFE. My goal was and is to make the entire thing at home, which I have achieved so far. It’s taken so long because of a) lack of motivation and time and b) I have had to build lots of jigs and buy more tools in order to complete the job.

As of October 2019, the sound box is now complete. Papua New Guinea Rosewood back and sides with Silver Quandong top. The bindings and end graft are Tassie Blackwood and maple.…

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